Take out the trash!

You know when you’re on an airplane and they’re going over the safety instructions…and they get to the part about your oxygen mask. I wise woman told me the same advice, to put on my own oxygen mask, before assisting others. It’s safe to say you can die trying to “save” others, when in all actuality you can only control your own actions. We often times want to focus on anyone else or anything else, but our own problems. We got all the judgments and advice for others, when really we have no room to talk. What’s that saying?… you need to remove the plank in your eye before you remove the speck in your brother’s eye. We often find ourselves hiding our own junk. We cover it up with work, people, media, whatever takes our minds off of it (out of sight, out of mind). Just like when we try to cover up the smelly trash with a glade plug in, or candles. We can let our junk fester like an open wound. I hope this imagery is coming across as gross as I think it is. Because the reality is even though we try to cover it up, it still stinks.

What I’m getting at is that we’re all responsible for our own trash. The more we hide it the smellier it gets. So we have to DO something. It’s not enough to acknowledge there’s a problem. It’s vitally important to acknowledge it, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. We have to say I’m hurt, I’m angry, I’m broken, I’m tired, I’m lost but we can’t stop at those truths. We have to know a second truth. For every hurt there is forgiveness, for every brokenness there’s healing, for weariness there’s rest, for anger there’s joy, for the lost can be found. But it requires action. We can’t just sit in our trash and expect it to not stink, or to grow legs and throw it’s self away. I was thinking this weekend about when we first went back to church. I can’t remember one Sunday I didn’t ball my eyes out. I now know in that moment Jesus wanted to take my trash, but I was holding on so tightly to it. I couldn’t or more like I wouldn’t let go. He was nudging me ever so lovingly to set it down because sometimes the doing just means letting go, releasing your grip so that your hands are open to receiving something far greater than the scraps of crap we hold on to. When we moved we would often purge old stuff, sometimes to downsize and other times to make room for something new. It got me thinking about how I was holding on to my hurt so much that there really wasn’t any room left for God’s goodness in my life, but when I let go of the hurt my heart was open to experiencing something new. That’s why it’s so important to consider what we open our hearts to and why we sometimes need to Marie Kondo the crap out of our hearts and get rid of the trash, the real trash. We honestly can be our own worst enemies.

Going back to work was a tough choice, but what some people don’t know is that I was asked back last year. And I so badly wanted to take the job, but logistically that was virtually impossible with Zoë in half day kindergarten. And the other truth is, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how to set my baggage at the door. I still had some trash I was holding on to. And over the past year I have worked hard to rummage through the trash and really clean house. It’s not perfect, and I might still have some cobwebs in the corners, but what I know is that it’s a process. As we walk around we accumulate more and we have to once again reassess our pile of stuff. The other thing I know is if we don’t deal with our own trash, it becomes someone else’s problem or it begins to effect those around us. That’s a harsh truth, but it’s true non the less. And often times we throw our trash at someone else in an effort to justify our own behavior. It’s not fair. So instead of clinging to the mountain of trash, I have made the conscious choice to throw it out and run the opposite direction. Because no matter what I never want to go back to that way of life. Moving forward in peace, joy, love, happiness has been the best choice I’ve made for myself. The funny thing is that choice also radiates. It has a ripple effect. My kids have been benefactors in that choice. And my hope is that they see the example so when they acquire trash through out their life they know exactly what to do with it, take it out!